You can buy premade stencils like radical skulls or bodacious flames from Airbrush suppliers (stores, online, eBay) however they may often be too large for working with miniatures. Salon suppliers will carry stencils that are sized for fingernails and therefor work with things our scale.

The selection will be large and they should already be cut. This means cleaner lines and no hassle.

Rather than buying stencils, you can make your own. (Covered in more detail lower) Here are some products to help you:

Regular paper will work in a pinch but since it absorbs paint, won't be too reusable. Photo paper might last a little longer however.

Plastic paper like overhead / transparency (projector) paper works well and is readily available. Unfortunately some office supply stores only sell bulk packages, but you could try teacher supply stores or photocopier places. DJ suppliers will usually have coloured film, which are rolls of plastic for placing infront of lights. (but usually comes in rolls and curls are a pain to work with)

Clear binder pages or card protectors also work, but you can't run them through a printer. You'll have to use a black sharpie marker to draw a stencil on these.

Masking tape also works, but you usually have to draw and cut the stencil after the tape's already on whatever you're painting... possibly damaging the surface.

Masking Liquid / Film

Another way to mask and/or stencil is to purchase a product that allows you to paint a mask on. Once you’ve painted your stencil, let it dry. This allows you to paint right on the surface of the mini and when you’re done, the liquid peels right off.

Test your product to make sure the stickiness won’t damage the surface you’re covering and that it’ll peel off easily.

Starting around $150 you can buy machines that not only print but also CUT. That's right, this is a stencil printer. Careful though, the expense with many of these are in the "cartridges". That link is a cartridge for $25 that gives you 48 cheap little flowers that can be printed. Same thing for font packs and so on... this makes the cost add up quickly.

If you're going to look at buying one of these, make sure that you can find software (Like Sure Cuts A Lot) that lets your computer take control of one and print ANYTHING.

How to Mask

Masking is a simple process of covering things near where you're spraying so that you don't get any paint where you don't want it.

A thick black and white image is easy to print off then cut as a stencil. If you do some Googling, you'll find there are lots of online sources for stencils that you can print and make yourself. (http://www.spraypaintstencils.com/)

Or look into shadow puppetry, which goes a lot further than using your hands.

Content on this website may not be reproduced without written permission from myself, Dave Garbe. Note that I'm not a trained artist - the things discussed on this site are mostly from self teaching and it's entirely possible there are better ways to do them.

Miniatures and other products are copyright their respective authors, manufacturers, owners and creators including but not limited to Games Workshop and Privateer Press.